Student gets probation for stealing from Sears while an employee

Guelph Mercury

GUELPH — A University of Guelph student who stole almost $9,000 in appliances and electronics at the Stone Road Mall Sears Canada store where he worked part-time and tried to sell them online was given a suspended sentence and placed on probation for a year Monday.

Justice John Payne also ordered Thusan Thadchanamoortay, 21, to perform 100 hours of community service after he pleaded guilty to theft over $5,000. That’s on top of 100 hours he’d already performed on his own in recent months.

Payne banned him from entering any Ontario Sears department stores during probation.

“I would just like to apologize for my actions,” he told Payne. “I’ve learned my lesson.” He said his family was experiencing financial difficulties at the time.

A criminal charge was dropped against a roommate alleged to have aided him in one instance.

The charge against Thadchanamoortay relates to the theft of appliances and televisions from the store’s rear shipping-receiving area in February and March of this year.

Assistant Crown prosecutor Marilyn Dolby said police evidence of the thefts included recorded surveillance of the dock area. Missing were goods worth $8,920, which Thadchanamoortay tried to dispose of under an alias on the online Kijiji classified advertising website.

He was apprehended after trying to sell a microwave oven to an undercover officer. Recovered from his apartment were stolen goods worth $3,940, Dolby said.

“It constitutes a breach of trust,” Dolby said, noting the man was a store employee when the planned and deliberate thefts occurred.

Court heard Thadchanamoortay was struggling at school, and was for a time on academic probation there. He promised to make full restitution, Payne was told by the man’s lawyer.